Season 27 (Doctor Who)

Season 27 of Doctor Who ran from 5 September 1990 and 5 December 1990. The season was the final season for both Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred, and introduced, not just, new companions, Katie Tollinger (Julia Sawalha) and Henrick (John Banks), but also, the Eighth Doctor, Richard Griffiths, in the final moments of its last episode.

Overview

Nathan-Turner's Departure

In May 1989, John Nathan-Turner met with the new Head of Serials, Michael Wearing to discuss the programme. The meeting wasn’t particularly long and mainly served as an opportunity for Wearing to introduce himself to Nathan-Turner. However, during the meeting a few points were raised.

Firstly, Nathan-Turner expressed his desire to leave the series sometime in the not-too-distant future, which surprised Wearing as Nathan-Turner was Doctor Who. Nathan-Turner explained that he’d been with the show for a decade, and thought that it was time to move on. Wearing’s response of suggesting replacements indicated to Nathan-Turner that Doctor Who would continue, after he left, which had not been the case when he’d asked Wearing’s predecessors the same thing, several times, over the past 5 years; instead threatening to cancel the show, if Nathan-Turner departed.

He also mentioned to Wearing, in the meeting, that Sylvester McCoy was currently only contracted for his 4th season, and that he thought it’d be a good idea to get McCoy on board for a 5th, giving a new producer a ready foundation. However, Wearing was more tentative about this, explaining that a fresh start, with new faces, in-front and behind the camera, could be just what the show needed.

Finding Wearing reasonable, Nathan-Turner did ask about possibly extending Doctor Who’s episode count, allowing for more serials to be produced per year. As Head of Serials, Wearing found the prospect of making more individual Doctor Who serials appealing, but told Nathan-Turner that it wouldn’t be possible to allocate the money unless Doctor Who managed to pick up in the ratings. Nathan-Turner asked about moving it into a more sensible slot, rather than against the most-popular programme on television, but Wearing insisted that was the Controller of BBC1, Jonathan Powell’s prerogative - a man who was heavily involved in Doctor Who’s 1985 cancellation order - so while Powell was in the job, Doctor Who was staying put.

This meeting instigated two things, firstly a healthier working relationship between John Nathan-Turner and his boss, and secondly the beginning of the search for his successor. The only problem now… Who would say “yes” to the offer?

Early Script Commissioning

During this period, Cartmel had stories for future seasons of Doctor Who being developed by several writers, including newcomers David A. McIntee, Neil Penswick, John Peel, Robin Mukherjee, Edward Young and Tony Etchells, as well as previous writers, Ben Aaronovitch, Marc Platt, Ian Briggs, Stephen Wyatt and Kevin Clarke. Needless to say, Cartmel had a lot of choices.

Development on some of these stories had begun as early as 1987, while some were only beginning at the time. It wasn’t Cartmel’s main focus, at the time, as Season 26 was in-production, but he did oversee each writer develop their serials, before pre-production on Season 27 began officially.

McIntee’s serial focused around body snatching aliens who inhabited the bodies of the dead; Penswick’s a shapeshifter space-hopping thriller; Peel’s a thrilling (and expensive) Dalek serial; Mukherjee’s a psychological introspective set on an asteroid; Edward Young’s a haunting horror piece; Etchells’ a politically charged first world war epic, set in the trenches; Aaronovitch’s a Star Trek-inspired space opera and Platt’s a 1960s Ice Warrior romp. Early ideas from Ian Briggs, Stephen Wyatt and Kevin Clarke, were at this point in their very early stages, being formulated in collaboration with Cartmel.

The most advanced serial, at this point, was Robin Mukherjee’s, which was titled Alixion. This had been in development for some time, and Cartmel had commissioned this for Season 26. His practice, at the time, was to commission five serials for each season, and then carry one of them over to the next. Alixion was the script that Cartmel chose to carry over, so, all being good, its place in Season 27 was secure.

Keen to carry on his “1 old writer/3 new writers” approach, Cartmel pencilled out a rough plan to bring Marc Platt in as the old writer, while the 3 new slots went to Robin Mukherjee, Edward Young and David A. McIntee. This wasn’t set in stone, but at this point, those were the stories that were the most developed and ready-to-go. However, circumstances would soon change.

Cast and Crew Departures

As production moved from The Wolves of Fenric to Battlefield to Survival to Ghost Light, John Nathan-Turner had begun conversations with the show’s two main stars, Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred, about the following year. During these conversations, Nathan-Turner had mentioned that the next season would be his last, and that it was currently contracted as McCoy’s last too, but his contract could be extended to a fifth season, to help settle the new producer in. McCoy reaffirmed to Nathan-Turner that he had only wanted to do three-seasons in the first place, and that he was only contracted for four, because he was told, by Nathan-Turner, that the option was 2 seasons or 4 seasons, so he had no desire to stay on for a fifth. This confirmation that McCoy’s contract would not be renewed soon made its way up the chain of command and to Wearing’s office, who approved of the decision.

With news of this reaching Andrew Cartmel’s office, shortly, he realised that considering the next season would be seeing the departure of both Sylvester McCoy and John Nathan-Turner, the two most vital elements of the show, that the character of Ace should probably be written out too. Ace had always been intended to leave fairly shortly, as she’d been a companion for three years, at this point, but this gave Cartmel the motive to begin thinking about just how Ace would be written out. He knew he wanted to make sure that her exit was a big deal to the narrative, as he wasn’t a fan of previous departures where companions would just sort of say “goodbye” and leave. He took these ideas back to some of the writers, most specifically the core team of experienced writers, including Aaronovitch, Platt, Briggs and Clarke, to cook up some possible ways to write out Ace.

It was around this point that Cartmel decided that he, himself, would also leave at the end of Season 27, as he decided it made sense for the entire team to make their exit together. Cartmel had been on the show for a few years now, and knew he wanted to go on to do different things, and he knew that, at the moment, he’d be able to get another Script Editor’s position, at the BBC, fairly easily.

Further Script Commissioning

Production on Ghost Light, and thus Season 26, wrapped on 3 August 1989, with John Nathan-Turner moving onto handling the post-production, and promotional, side of things for Season 26, while Andrew Cartmel turned his attention to officially beginning pre-production for Season 27.

It was during this period that The Wolves of Fenric was renamed The Curse of Fenric, and there were possible questions over the season’s running order, by John Nathan-Turner, to get certain episodes to air on Halloween, but as this was only a minor issue, which would have interfered with some lines within other stories, the order of serials was kept as intended.

Cartmel had amended his planned Season 27, in light of both Doctor and companion departures, to give Ian Briggs (the creator of Ace) a slot, to write Ace out. As it was assumed that Ace would leave in the fourth serial of the season, Ian Briggs would, in turn, be scripting Sylvester McCoy’s regeneration story. Not wanting to lose Platt’s Ice Warrior serial, especially as Nathan-Turner was keen for the Ice Warriors to reappear, Cartmel decided to drop one of the new writers from the season’s line-up. He decided to drop, for now, David A. McIntee’s serial, as he felt that was the least developed, of the three, but also the body snatching plot could be an issue, thematically, in a season where the Doctor changes bodies. Therefore, now Season 27’s line-up of writers looked like: Robin Mukherjee, Marc Platt, Edward Young and Ian Briggs.

John Nathan-Turner had always been very hands-on as producer of Doctor Who in his early days, but following the 1985 cancellation order from Michael Grade, and the loss of, script editor, Eric Saward in 1986, Nathan-Turner began to step back and allow, new script editor, Andrew Cartmel to essentially be the de-facto showrunner. However, with Nathan-Turner now aware that Season 27 would be his last, he suddenly decided that he wanted a lot more control on this season, than the previous three, and that he wanted it to act as a definitive send-off for his era. This began with Nathan-Turner insisting that Ben Aaronovitch’s proposed serial, Earth Aid, a Star Trek-inspired space opera, be put back into the season’s roster. It was initially scrapped because Cartmel thought that realising it would make the story look very “cheap” but Nathan-Turner had his heart set on including it. Additionally, while Cartmel had worked with the writers to develop a possible outline for a new companion, they had decided that they would leave that to a new production team. Nathan-Turner had other ideas, wanting a lasting legacy to continue through to the next season, and asked Cartmel to revisit the idea of Ace departing in the middle of the season and introducing a new companion for the final two stories. The character that Cartmel and Aaronovitch had conceived was a posh upper-class cat burglar, who could be introduced in a much-adapted version of Night Thoughts, and Nathan-Turner had just the actor in mind for the character.

This, in turn, meant that the season line-up now looked like Earth Aid as the opener, Ian Briggs’ untitled story as the second serial (but without the Doctor regenerating), Night Thoughts as the third and Alixion as the second. This did, however, mean the Ice Warrior serial, Ice Time, which Nathan-Turner particularly wanted in the season had to be dropped. Nathan-Turner wasn’t happy and insisted that it go back in but Cartmel explained that the only way would be to drop Night Thoughts, but, if that was the case, then the new companion concept wouldn’t “fit” into Ice Time nicely, and a new concept would probably have to be used. Nathan-Turner then suggested replacing Ian Briggs’ untitled story, which would’ve written out Ace, with Ice Time. Cartmel wasn’t happy as Ian Briggs was Ace’s creator and that denying him the chance to write out the character wasn’t something he wanted to do, but Nathan-Turner insisted and Ice Time became the second serial. Now the season looked like… Earth Aid, Ice Time, Night Thoughts and Alixion.

Soon after, things changed again, as writer, Edward Young (who may or may not have been using a pseudonym) wasn’t happy with the proposed changes to his story to introduce new companion, Katie (a name that Nathan-Turner had adapted from the originally proposed Kate). Cartmel, therefore, decided that, because he was so impressed with Night Thoughts, he’d commission the story as the holdover story for Season 28, and that another would replace it in the Season 27 line-up.

Initially, Cartmel approached Ian Briggs again and wondered if the idea for his Ace-exit story could be rejigged to introduce new companion, Katie. Briggs said that it wasn’t really possible and that the story was fundamentally one about Ace. Cartmel then looked back over the, previously rejected, ideas for the season and found an early idea by Kevin Clarke (who had written Silver Nemesis). The idea was in its very early formation, but Cartmel trusted Clarke’s ability to turn around a script, so asked him to write it with the added stipulation that the story had to be set in an upper-class mansion and feature, new companion, Katie, as a cat burglar.

Finally, Alixion wasn’t safe even from Nathan-Turner’s interference. Despite this story being carried over from Season 26, Nathan-Turner was concerned that having his final story, and Sylvester’s final story, set on an alien planet might not quite work. He wanted something more akin to Logopolis or, more recently, Battlefield. Nathan-Turner wanted something grounded and ideally something that featured UNIT. Thus, Cartmel turned to an idea he had called Blood and Iron, and looked for a writer to commission a script. However, Nathan-Turner and Ben Aaronvitch both suggested that Cartmel should write the serial himself, as it was his final one and he hadn’t had the opportunity, that most other script editors had had, to write an actual story. Thus Cartmel was pencilled in to write the final adventure of the series.

Now, after all of these changes, before production began in April, the season now looked like: Earth Aid, Ice Time, Crime of the Century and Blood and Iron. It was decided that, due to production logistics, Ice Time would be produced first as a Studio/Location production four-parter; then Earth Aid would be produced entirely in studio as a three-parter; then the same director would shoot Crime of the Century was an all-location three-parter; finally, the season would end with Blood and Iron produced as a Studio/Location four-parter. John Nathan-Turner also organised a mini-Doctor Who convention to take place at one of the locations for Blood and Iron, the day after filming wrapped to act as a JNT-era wrap party.

The New Producer

Michael Wearing was working with Nathan-Turner and others in the serials department to appoint a successor. Nathan-Turner suggested to Wearing that, production manager, Ian Fraser would make a good producer and deserved the promotion and opportunity. Nathan-Turner also explained that much the same had happened to him and his previous inside-knowledge of the show had helped him immensely. However, Wearing was more keen to scout a new producer from outside the current Doctor Who production team. Unfortunately, everyone Wearing approached, politely and sometimes impolitely, turned him down. This meant that the appointment of the next producer took a considerable number of months, before finally in June, Wearing agreed to Nathan-Turner’s idea, and appointed Ian Fraser as Doctor Who’s new producer. Wearing wondered if Nathan-Turner might stay on as an Executive Producer for the next season but Nathan-Turner said that “when I go, I have to go”. Wearing instead decided that he’d just make sure that he’d keep a closer eye on the show during the development and production of its next run of episodes.

Casting the Eighth Doctor

The casting process for the Eighth Doctor began fairly soon after Michael Wearing appointed Ian Fraser as Doctor Who's new producer. Fraser had yet to formally take over, and still working as a production manager on Season 27; most notably on Blood and Iron, allowed him to oversee the transition to his premiership with ease. Previously, the outgoing producer had cast a new Doctor, even if they knew that another would be producing the show by the time they began working with them for a full season. Nathan-Turner decided, after having cast three Doctors, that it wasn't his place to cast a fourth, and so, he enthusiastically gave Ian Fraser permission to use the Doctor Who production office in the process of casting the next Doctor.

As a new Script Editor had yet to be appointed, Cartmel worked with Fraser through this period as they worked out what sort of character their new Doctor would be. This brief was handed out to the necessary agents and the interested ones with actors who they represented replied and auditions were set up. Following a rigorous audition process, which also had to be overseen by Michael Wearing and Jonathan Powell, Richard Griffiths was awarded the role. Griffiths had been considered for the role of the Fifth Doctor a decade earlier, but Nathan-Turner just preferred Peter Davison when it came down to it. Griffiths' impressive CV gave Wearing and Powell the confidence that if anybody could bring audiences to Doctor Who in the 1990s, it was Griffiths.

Richard Griffiths was formally contracted as the Doctor during production of Crime of the Century, and a photo call with Julia Sawalha took place within the following days. On 13th August 1990, just under a month before Season 27 began airing, Richard Griffiths was announced as the Eighth Doctor. At this time, Blood and Iron was wrapping up production, and Griffiths traveled to BBC Television Centre to film his half of the regeneration. Following this, it would be another six months before Richard Griffiths would step into the role full time when production on Season 28 began.

Cast

Regular

Recurring

Guest

Television Stories

Serial	#	Title	Writer	Director	Air Date
1	1	Earth Aid	Ben Aaronovitch	Alan Wareing	5 September 1990
	2				12 September 1990
	3				19 September 1990
2	4	Ice Time	Marc Platt	Nicholas Mallett	26 September 1990
	5				3 October 1990
	6				10 October 1990
	7				17 October 1990
3	8	Crime of the Century	Kevin Clarke	Alan Wareing	24 October 1990
	9				31 October 1990
	10				7 November 1990
4	11	Blood and Iron	Andrew Cartmel	Graeme Harper	14 November 1990
	12				21 November 1990
	13				28 November 1990
	14				5 December 1990

Production

Crew

To be added.

Shooting Blocks

To be added.

Filming

To be added.

Aliens and Enemies

Home Media

Physical Media

Title and Episodes included	Cover	Format	Number and duration of episodes	Release Date
The Complete Twenty Seventh Season Earth Aid/Ice Time/Crime of the Century/Blood and Iron	TBD	DVD	14x25 minutes	8 September 2003
The Sylvester McCoy Era Earth Aid/Ice Time/Crime of the Century/Blood and Iron	TBD	DVD	57x25 minutes	2 December 2010

Download/Streaming

Country	Netflix	Amazon Video	Google Play	iTunes	Britbox	BBC iPlayer
United Kingdom	-	✓	-	-	✓	-
United States	-	-	-	-	✓	-
Canada	-	-	-	-	✓	-
Ireland	-	✓	-	✓	-	-
Australia	-	✓	-	✓	-	-

BBC Player is only available in the UK. iTunes only carry Doctor Who in the US, Canada, Ireland and Australia. Amazon Video can stream Doctor Who through BritBox in the US, and holds it as a paid series in all other countries, but Australia where it's included with Prime.